In A Song
by SallaScaramouche
Summary: "It'll take some time, but I know that I can find where I belong, and I'll find it in a song." Basically Percy has a band, but I will be focusing on the relationships inside the band, not so much the music career. AU.
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's** **Note**:_

_Okay, so, this is my first ever long story in English. I'm not a native English speaker, so try to understand the mistakes I make. I also can't promise I'll update very often, but I am planning on finishing this story someday in the next couple of years._

* * *

**Chapter 1**

_Hey and welcome back! My name is Mellie and you're listening to Radio Aialos's pop news! I must say we have some very interesting newbies on the top-lists, and here's one of them: Camp Half-Blood!_

_This band is claimed to be bigger sensation than One Direction and Justin Bieber combined– and some say this is nearing the popularity of the Beatles and Elvis Presley. Camp Half-Blood plays their own kind of music, something amazing between pop and glam-rock without all that Freddie Mercury, and now, only two days after their first single _Six Degrees Of Separation_ came out last Friday, it is already third on the America's Music Chart list._

_It is actually weird to think about it, but behind the thick red curtains of rising world-wide stars these guys are just ordinary teenagers around the United States. There's five of them. Dark and curious Nico di Angelo in the bass guitar while his cousin Thalia Grace is the lord of the keyboards. Lead singer Annabeth Chase shines with her golden curls and amazing voice, Nico and Thalia's cousin Percy Jackson plays the guitar like the God himself and, last but not least, Charles Beckendorf gives the beat like no other. These guys have some serious talent. Nico is the youngest of them, can you believe it, only fifteen years old! _

_I am happy to tell you that we managed to call Percy yesterday to ask him what they all felt about the release of their single._

"_It's all a bit of a blur. I mean, this is all amazing and stuff, but it's kind of hard to think anything of it just yet. Music is what we love to do, and yeah, it's amazing that others seem to like it too."_

_There has been many speculative questions about the name, Camp Half-Blood. Where did that come from?_

"_Well that's actually a pretty funny story. Thals, Nico and I used to go to this summer camp when we were kids. The camp had many kinds of stuff about Greek mythology. That's where we first met Annabeth, when we were six, and Beckendorf came along on a 4th of July party there. So when Olympus Recording discovered us somewhat a year ago, it was kind of obvious that we wanted the name to have something to do with that stuff. Half-blood is another name for a demigod, a person who is partly human, partly a Greek god."_

_Whoa, seems like we were right to think about them as gods! So tell me Percy, as I'm sure all the girls and in Annabeth and Thalia's cases boys too out there are dying to know: are any of you guys dating anyone?_

"_Um... well. I mean, Beckendorf's got a girlfriend, Silena, who has been our friend for years. But yeah, no other couples that I know about. At the moment at least."_

_So does this mean you're free to catch, or is there someone you have your eye on?_

"_...I don't think I'm going to answer that."_

_I guess there is someone after all. We are definitely looking forward to hear some more about that, but you heard it girls, Nico is available and hotter than ever! And now we're going to hear from Camp Half-Blood their first single, _Six Degrees Of Separation_, from their very first album with the same name..._

I switched the volume down (we had heard the song too many times for one day already and it was barely noon, and Annabeth didn't like to hear her own voice on tape more than was necessary) and grinned at Nico next to me. "Hotter than ever, huh? I guess Bianca is going to have a say on that soon enough."

"I can't believe it!" Thalia yelled from the back seat while Annabeth rolled her eyes. If there was something Thalia had common with her dad, it was being a natural drama queen. "They talk all about you and Mr Bass Guitar here! Where am I? 'Oh, I forgot to mention, Thalia Grace plays the keyboards...' That's disgusting!"

"Calm down, Thals. I think she said you are 'the lord of the keyboards'", Beckendorf smirked. He was typing on his iPhone, probably texting Silena. "Besides, it was just one interview. I bet you're going to have your own soon enough, and knowing you your name will be on everyone's lips by the end of the year."

"Thanks, Beckendorf, that was really thoughtful of you."

I laughed and turned my head so that I could see my cousin better. "Is it really true that Thalia Grace, the one who originally didn't even want to be in the band, is wanting more and more attention? That is really – "

"Eyes on the road, Seaweed Brain", Annabeth snapped at me and hit my head. Hard.

"Down, tiger! Jeez, that was just a few seconds!"

"A few seconds is enough to get us all killed, Percy. Keep that in mind."

"I am going to question who let Kelp Head drive in the first place", Thalia mumbled, but didn't bother to say that any louder.

I drove in silence for a while, listening to Nico, Thalia and Annabeth talking about the movie they were watching the night before while I was having a _very_ long and nice Skype-conversation with my mom and Paul, and Beckendorf had a date night with Silena. It sounded like they had a good time. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't jealous at all – in fact it was kind of nice to have a day off, living with all of them 24/7 could be exhausting sometimes. (Especially Thalia. She was my cousin and I loved her to bits, but to tell you the truth, she could be a real bitch if she wanted. And when I was around she seemed to really want to be just that.) Besides (call me a whimp) I really missed my mom.

As I turned to the parking lot and we got out of the car we saw some paparazzi just around the corner. I guess that was something we had to get used to: not being able to have a Starbucks without pictures ending up around the web. By the looks of it, though, Thals seemed to enjoy it. She winked at the cameras (something I never imagined I'd see in my entire life) and seemed to be very comfortable with the fact that soon everyone would see her facial expressions.

Once we got our coffees and sat down to a table far from the windows, we were already having a great time. It was always like that with them – they were (mostly) my best friends, and since I had grown up with them, we knew almost everything about each other, so there was no silence between us and definitely not a minute without teasing someone.

And yeah, as it turned out, first thing they wanted to hear was if I really had a specific girl in my mind like the reporter had said.

"Come on, Perce, who is that girl, do I know her? You know you can tell me!" Thalia teased me and Nico and Annabeth snickered, knowing better than well that Thalia was the last person I'd ever tell anything like this. "I'm not going to tell anyone, I promise, really. I'll take your biggest secret to my grave!"

"Before or after you announce it on Twitter for the whole world to read?" I raised my eyebrows at her. "Yeah, not gonna happen."

They all laughed and Thalia closed the Twitter application on her iPhone. "No offense, but you just told us that there is someone after all", Beckendorf smiled at me apologetically and I had to hide my face in my hands as I felt my cheeks warm up. Annabeth chocked out her coffee and probably looked like she could die in laughter.

"Aw, does my little Seaweed Brain have a crush?" she teased, which made me blush even more.

"Okay, let's find out who she is!" Nico said and snatched my phone from my pocket before I could say anything. I tried to take it back, but it seemed that they were all against me now, and the phone ended up in Annabeth's hands while Beckendorf was holding me back. I groaned, because Annabeth happened to be the only one in the entire world who knew my screen lock. She always guessed it right away and there just wasn't no use for her not knowing it, so I didn't bother changing it anymore. "Search for girls with hearts from his contacts."

As Annabeth scrolled down, looking like the devil herself, Thalia kept on smirking at me just the way she knew I hated it. "There's 'Rach' with a heart. You mean Rachel Dare?" Annabeth raised an eyebrow. "Are you two back together or something? How come I haven't heard anything about that?"

"There's a heart just after your name too. And Mom's. And Calypso's, and Hazel's. Even Leo has a heart after his name, though he put it there himself." I rolled my eyes and was actually pretty proud of myself. Damn I'm good. This was the only thing I was hiding from Annabeth, and I really wished to keep it like that. "You're not gonna find out that way."

"Check his texts", Thalia said quickly before turning back to me. "What do you mean, don't _I_ have a heart after my name on your phone?"

"No, you have a grim face. For putting a heart there would need _you_ to actually have one."

Beckendorf and Annabeth (who, I assume, was now reading my texts, which would be pretty annoying if she wasn't my very best friend and if most of the texts weren't from her) laughed at Thalia's expression while Nico whispered very loudly: "Would you like some Aloe Vera for that? 'Cause you just got _burned_." She just glared at all of us and asked Annabeth for results and I thought Nico watched way too much TV.

"Nothing interesting, sorry", Annabeth sighed handing the phone over to me. "Most of the texts are from me, and then there are the ones from Grover and Jason. Some random ones from Rachel and his mom, and maybe one or two from Leo and a two-word text from Calypso, but that's it."

Beckendorf looked pretty amused. "You guys live in the same house, you're practically attached by the hip – why do you text each other so much?" he asked looking at me and Annabeth. "Don't you ever need a break? Some time alone?"

I grinned. "Best friends, remember?" I earned a smack from Annabeth with that one, but she didn't seem too mad. To tell you the truth, I had been thinking the exactly same thing not so long ago myself – how did we stand each other so well? And most importantly, how come Annabeth hadn't killed me already? But we just stayed best friends. As Beckendorf had noted, we were hardly ever seen apart. And when we weren't in the same place, or even if we were in the same room, we were texting. A lot. It was a very good thing that it was Annabeth who had read my texts; anyone else might have thought something very different about them.

Nico seemed very pissed that they didn't find out who my secret crush was (if I even had one, I might add), so he just continued sipping his latte and looking like a super depressed emo kid as he did most of the time nowadays. He wasn't really depressed, I think, or wasn't anymore anyway, even though he admittedly looked like it. Nico was just... really dark, I think, and a bit sad, too. He had been that way since his parents died four years ago and Bianca left for college. I think he felt that no one wanted him or something. After the funeral Nico moved in with me and my mom and step-dad Paul, which was pretty cool, and it was actually Nico who first came up with the idea of a band a couple of years ago.

Suddenly the poor boy got a call and his iPhone started playing some Spice Girls song a little too loud for my liking – or Nico's for that matter. He stood up and answered the call walking outside with his face all red, raising his middle finger to our snickering cousin. This was definitely not the first time Thalia had changed his ring tone, but this was one of the best tunes she had picked.

"When the hell did you do that?" I asked laughing and finished my hot chocolate. (I know, hot chocolate in the middle of summer? But does it really matter?)

Thalia shrugged. "This morning – but don't tell him his alarm clock plays Pussycat Dolls, I promised Bianca I'd take that on tape tomorrow morning."

We hadn't stopped laughing when Nico came back. His face was still red when he told us it was Bianca that called – just like I had thought. He didn't say a word to Thals for a good ten minutes, until Annabeth checked the time and reminded us that we were supposed to be at the studio in fifteen minutes, and Nico muttered something about how everything in the world was Thalia's fault. Oh, how often I wanted to agree with him on that one.

At the studio we were greeted by our manager, who called himself Chiron. I have to tell you, it was a bit embarrassing that I didn't remember his real name, but in the contract it said "C. Brunner" and everyone just called him Chiron, so I'm not sure if it even mattered. Grover, our agent and my best friend beside Annabeth, was there too, a bit nervous as he always was, eating his lunch salad. It seemed like they were not actually waiting for us to show up in another twenty minutes, since we were always late, but Annabeth had this thing that she wanted to schedule everything we do, so – for the first time ever – Camp Half-Blood was in the right place in the right time.

"Good job, kids, you're getting better at this!" Chiron smiled at us and nodded us to take seats next to him, because, well, he was in a wheel chair. (To be honest, Nico was the only real kid of us, being fifteen. Me, Annabeth and Thalia were eighteen already, so we were of age just like Beckendorf, who had just turned 21. But if you asked Chiron, we were all just children.) "Sit, sit. They took your first single quite well, now, didn't they?"

"'Quite well'?" Thalia laughed. "You call the top 10 of the chart list 'quite well'? I'd say pretty amazing."

"No one asked your opinion", Nico mumbled, still mad at her.

"Shut up, Spice Girl."

"Guys, stop it", Annabeth snapped. She was getting really annoyed about the two of them always fighting. "One meeting, okay? One meeting, then you are free to keep on fighting while walking home." Thalia and Nico glared at each other as me and Beckendorf grinned. "Now, Chiron. Sorry. You may continue."

"Thank you, my dear. As I was saying, they took your first single very well, and the next one is out in two weeks. And now it's time to decide which one's it gonna be: _How To Be A Heart Breaker_ or _The Only Exception_."

We had to debate between those two songs a long time, because me, Beckendorf and Thalia wanted it to be _How To Be A Heart Breaker_ while Annabeth and Nico were hailing for _The Only Exception_, and obviously Nico and Thalia couldn't agree with anything even when Annabeth decided to jump on our side after the first five minutes. Nico kept saying that _How To Be A Heart Breaker_ was so good we should save it for the opening track of the album, while we others agreed that making it a single would want people to buy the CD more desperately. I could see that Nico knew we were right, but he just couldn't give up with Thals on our side, but we ended up deciding against him (although he didn't seem to be too sad about it).

During the next hour we also decided what other songs we were putting on the CD and in what order. We had recorded like thirty songs in the spring, so there were many to choose from. To give Nico some credit, we put _How To Be A Heart Breaker_ on the first track. After that came our more of a rock-version of _Imagine _by John Lennon, and then one of my first own songs, _Monster_, which I had written more or less four years ago. _Six Degrees Of Separation_, our first single, took the fourth track, and then we had _Decode_ and a cover of Madonna's _Material Girl_ with changed lyrics before the biggest flop from my part.

Track seven: _Good Time_. The song was good, it was really, really good, and Annabeth totally killed it, but then came my part... Yes, me, Percy Jackson, singing something more than backs. At first the thought of making a duet with Annabeth was simply interesting, and really, we were super tired that night we wrote it after a long day at the studio (and on top of that it happened to be Annabeth's birthday, and yes, we were pissed). The next week I tried to say I didn't want to record it, but Chiron actually liked it a lot and kind of begged me to do it. So I did. Beckendorf just kept telling me I had a great voice, and yeah, maybe I did, but I still didn't like hearing my voice on tape. It sounded... not normal. And now Annabeth insisted on putting _Good Time_ on track seven, and no one was behind me. Typical.

So after that, on track eight we had _The Only Exception_, then _Complicated_, _What The Hell_ (Thalia's personal favorite, no surprise there) and the only song written by Beckendorf, _Safe And Sound_. We also added a hidden track. _Shake It Out_ was something Annabeth had written the previous winter, and it was kind of personal. Nico and Beckendorf knew the basics of the thing, but Thalia and I knew the whole dirty story behind the lyrics. It was not my favorite story, not at all.

You see, Annabeth didn't live a life from a fairytale. Her mother left when she was a baby, and her dad remarried her step-mom soon after that. She never really got along with her step-mom, nothing like me and Paul, and when she was only seven she felt like she didn't belong. So she left. I know, a seven-year-old little girl alone on the streets of San Francisco. Maybe not the best idea. But Annabeth was smart, and she knew she couldn't do it with her dad or on her own. She moved to New York to live with her Aunt Artemis, who happened to be Thalia's nanny at the time.

So her childhood wasn't very pretty, but that's not all, because just a year ago Annabeth was dating Luke Castellan. I admit it, I never really liked Luke in the first place, first because I was kind of over-protective towards Annabeth and second because, well, had a tiny little crush on her (which had nothing to do with the fact that I ended up hating Luke's guts), and then because I realized Luke was an arrogant ass. He acted like Annabeth was his pet dog, he was practically using her every way possible, and she was just so broken she needed someone to love her. So she was with Luke, loving him blindly, even though Thalia and I tried to tell her to snap out of it. She didn't listen, she yelled at us, but we kept telling her Luke wasn't good for her. It took her six months to see we were right, and three more to break up with him. He didn't go down without a fight, and since I was helping her, I ended up spending a night at the hospital.

But Luke left Annabeth alone after that – almost. He sent her some nasty texts a couple of times before she changed her number, and paid her a couple of drunk visits, but Aunt Artemis ended them soon enough. (She was great. She didn't really like men in general, not even me or Nico or Thalia's brother Jason, but she absolutely loathed men like Luke.) Annabeth was hurt and broken and spent three weeks at Thalia's not wanting to see anyone but me or Thals, and yeah, basically after that my "tiny little crush" wasn't so tiny and little anymore.

Anyway, my crush on her was not important at that point. Annabeth needed a friend, I was there. She needed a shoulder to cry on (what a cliché), I was there. She needed someone to take her to the movies when she was down and stand laughing in the rain just because it's incredibly stupid and tell her old jokes until she fell asleep. _I was there_. End of story.

At first I was actually pretty surprised to hear that she wanted to make _Shake It Out_ the hidden track. She had broken into tears while recording it, and it had taken me and Thalia half an hour to make her calm enough to sing again. But as I was looking at her right there at the studio, I realized she was very well over Luke, and that song was like the final take. I was proud of her. Only a year ago she was so in love with him it hurt me and Thalia to see her with him, and now she was there, at a studio in Los Angeles, very independent, very strong and very single.

...I didn't say that last part, okay? She'd kill me for that.

Chiron, who didn't know a thing about Annabeth's problems with her family and Luke, absolutely loved the song. He wasn't stupid (he was a genius actually), he knew there was something not-so-pretty behind it, but he didn't ask. Instead of that he seemed to take Annabeth under his wing and treat her like his own daughter. She didn't mind, and I could see she actually liked to have someone to look up to. Beckendorf was like the cool big brother we never had, and Nico was like a baby brother to all of us, and now we even had a dad. A big happy family (note the sarcasm).

I think I mentioned my texting with Annabeth before. We were texting all the time, sometimes even when we were in the same room, so I wasn't surprised to feel my phone vibrate in the pocket of my jeans just after we had finally agreed with every song. I unlocked my screen and smiled a little as I saw a picture of me and Annabeth just a couple of days ago in a bookstore. I wasn't so into books, but she was a huge bookworm and somehow she always managed to drag me with her. Shaking my head, I opened her text.

_Since we don't really have anywhere to go tomorrow, is it OK that I planned a best friend's sleepover to your room for tonight? ;)_

That was definitely not our first sleepover, we had those more or less once a week. Mostly it meant that we'd be laying on my bed and having deep conversations all night long, maybe pick up some movie if we were on the mood, but basically just hanging around. I found myself grinning as I typed my answer. _Works for me. We can go and buy blue cupcakes on our way home. You have a reason not to ask out loud? :D_ I managed to send it right before Nico realized I was texting.

"Texting to your specific girl, Perce?" he asked and wiggled his brows. I just winked at him and said that yeah, maybe I was. It was funny how they didn't seem to notice that Annabeth rolled her eyes and typed on her phone like crazy.

_So I'm your specific girl now, eh? ;) And just for your information, Seaweed Brain, I am not in the mood of listening to Thalia and Nico and their stupid suggestive comments about me sleeping in the same bed with you, especially in front of Chiron. I'll sneak in to your room around midnight, OK? Be a good boy._

_Sounds like a plan, Wise Girl. Can't wait! ;)_ I typed back before putting my phone away, knowing she wouldn't answer that. You see what I meant about someone misunderstanding out texts? That wasn't even bad. Some of our texts were like, pure flirting and teasing (in every meaning of the word), some with even mild sexual content, but it was all really just for laughs. I would be horrified if someone else read our texts, but I have to admit that I would pay to see Thalia's face when she saw a text including something about the size of her breasts or the fact that I liked to sleep with my hand loosely around her waste and her face hidden in the crook of my neck.

Oh God, that sounded like we were really dating. It was nothing like that, I swear, we were just very close friends. Annabeth used to say that she was my other half, that we knew each other so well we didn't really need to speak, and that we felt extremely comfortable around each other. That's what I meant. Besides I think that after breaking up with Luke she needed a guy to hold her (one of my great theories), and I wanted to hold her, so it was a win-win situation.

After we had discussed about everything we needed with Chiron and Grover, we came to the conclusion that Nico and Thalia weren't that bad and that we could very well give them a ride home – although Annabeth told them that if they even talked to each other during the way they would be walking rest of the way. Grover said something about coming over the next day, and Chiron reminded us about the meeting the following Monday, which was almost a week ahead. I didn't give it much of a thought, knowing that Annabeth and Beckendorf would make sure we'd all be there.

On our way we stopped by my favorite café. It was my favorite simply because it seemed to be the only place in the world where they had blue cupcakes and didn't give you a weird look if you wanted your chocolate milkshake blue. Me and Annabeth were there for only ten minutes, and when we got back to the car, it was obvious my cousins had been arguing. No one said a word, though, and the rest of the drive was spent in a comfortable silence.

Now, a couple of words about our house. It wasn't really a house, it was more of a manor. It was a property of my dad and his two brothers – Thalia's dad and Nico's dad, who had passed away. (I think that meant a third of the house was Nico and Bianca's, but since he was under aged and his sister didn't really care a shit, the other two brothers took care of it.) Our family wasn't actually poor, because our dads owned a huge company producing solar power, wind mills and (my favorite part) super cool yachts. (Don't ask me how the three of them worked together, I wouldn't know.) As we were discovered by Olympus Recording and Chiron asked us to move to L.A. our dads insisted us all to be living in that place. It was on the rich side of Los Angeles, so I think you can pretty much guess what it looked like.

It was a three-story building with a dozen balconies and a huge backyard. I'm not going into detail, Annabeth would do that way better than me, but it was built of gray stone and had a black roof – and most importantly, a big pool. It was in the back, though, behind our garage, where we kept my car and Beckendorf's van.

You might thing how come we lived there, just the five of us on our own. The thing was we weren't on our own, we had Hestia. She was one of my dad's relatives, I think a cousin or something, and she was also a very good friend of Chiron's. She didn't live there with us, but she spent many hours a day just checking on us, keeping the house home-like, making sure we had food in our fridge, trying to be our mother sort of. That would have worked better if she wasn't just two years older than Beckendorf, but she still was one of those persons who just made you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Hestia was there when we got home. She was sitting in our living room, watching one of the many shows with Jamie Oliver cooking from TV. We all knew she had a soft spot for men who knew how to cook and do all kinds of things at home. She was a bit weird that way, but be let her be. We all had our weird habits and stuff.

"Hey, kids!" she smiled warmly as we entered. Thals went straight to her room on second floor (she was actually scared of the hight, but she said she needed to get used to it – still she didn't want her room to the third floor) without saying another word to anyone and Nico made his way to our basement, which had our band room and also his bedroom. (None of us really understood why he wanted his room to be in the basement, but we didn't ask.) "I was watching MTV earlier, they seemed to be very excited about your album release next month."

"Aren't we all?" Beckendorf smiled and went to the kitchen, probably to grab a snack or something. I sat down on a couch as Jamie Oliver started the dessert with strawberries, champagne and vanilla ice cream. "Silena said every single one of her friends and 'friends' from the music business is expecting us to throw a huge party", Beckendorf continued as he came back with a can of soda in his hand.

"_No_." I smirked. Of course Hestia would say no. Annabeth rolled her eyes before mumbling something about taking a shower. "Absolutely not. You are not having any kind of a party here. What would your parents say? I'm pretty sure Percy's mom would take you all back to New York straight away."

I had no doubt of that, and I bet neither did Beckendorf, but he still smiled widely. "Calm down. We weren't having a party anyway, Nico is under aged."

"Like that'd stop us", I just had to say before I stood up and headed to my room to change for my swimming shorts. "If someone asks, I'm by the pool."

Me and Beckendorf kind of shared the top floor with the game room and our own bathrooms, but we didn't really spend much time there. The thing was, in a big house like that, you could feel so alone sometimes, and you just wanted some company. And that's one of the reasons we had made the hall in the second floor our other living room.

My room was the farthest room away from the staircase on third floor. It was the size of my mom's apartment back in New York, and it made me feel a little guilty. But I shook it off quickly, knowing that if mom and Paul wanted they could very well move to a bigger place. They just happened to like the crammed spaces. I didn't really need a huge room, though, since I didn't have much stuff. I had my bed (I liked sleeping a lot, so yeah, a king-sized bed), a writing desk (I didn't use it that much, the drawers were filled with Annabeth's architecture stuff), my own balcony and a wardrobe. And, of course, one of the most beautiful items in the whole world, I had Riptide.

Riptide was my very first guitar. It was also the first gift I ever got from my dad, when I first met him on my eleventh birthday. Of course he had sent me letters and given me some pocket money on Christmas (does 200 dollars count as pocket money?) and of course mom had showed me a couple of pictures, but dad was busy with the company, so he didn't have the chance to show up before that. I'm not saying that I understood that or that I forgave him, but I had learned to live with the fact that my dad preferred work over getting to know his son. Sounds harsh, but it was the truth.

I had two other guitars now, too, and they were also better ones, but Riptide was my all time favorite. It was my baby, after all. It was old, dad had bought it when he was sixteen, and even though he never became a very good player, he had kept it. Now it was mine, and I valued it more than anything else in my room. It was a dark blue acoustic Fender and it had many scratches on it's neck, and dad had written the name Riptide to it's side. Dad had also put some stickers on it and I didn't really have the heart to take them off, even when Thalia teased me about the one that said (first in Chinese and under that in English) "Inc. bits of peanuts and seaweed." I had no idea where dad got that one, maybe from China Town or something, but it was kind of cool.

I smiled at the guitar that was on it's stand right next to my bed – I had a habit to play it before going to sleep – and grabbed my swimming shorts from the floor. I changed and took my towel from the bathroom. It was getting pretty late, but I still wanted to swim a couple of laps.

Water had always been sort of my element. I'd always loved the sea, maybe because it was impossible to be tamed, just like me, and swimming had been my thing since forever. At school I was the captain of my swim team – at least before I dropped out of high school to move to the other side of the country. I thought about that as I swam. It had been hardest to Annabeth, to move and leave school, because she really loved school and reading and learning and all that crap, but she managed to finish the semester despite the distance, and she was insisting on all of us to attend in one of the local high schools next fall. Well, not Beckendorf, he had just started college a year ago, and he said he'd have a break to focus on music. Lucky one.

I had been swimming for maybe half an hour when I saw Nico sitting on the edge of the pool with his feet in the water. He was wearing black denim shorts and a black t-shirt, and he seemed pretty depressed. But he looked like that a lot, it was a part of him, and now that it was really getting dark the shadows made his face look almost creepy.

As I swam by him I saw that he had a ring in his hands – his dad's ring, the one with a tiny skull on it. I know, it sounded a weird thing to have to remember your dead dad from, but Nico was very keen on the ring. He was always wearing it, and sometimes (like now) when he was feeling more sad than usual, he used to observe it very closely. I could have sworn he knew everything there was to know about the ring.

"What's up?" I asked as I pulled myself up from the pool and sat down beside him. I wasn't waiting for an answer, and he didn't give me one.

Nico wasn't much of a talker, and I didn't want to push him. When he first moved in with me and my mom and Paul it took him two months to say a word, and it still was hard for him to talk to people about some things, like his parents. He had taken a habit to come and sit by the pool as I was swimming, because since me and Thalia were the closest family he had left, I was the only one he felt somewhat comfortable around. He didn't talk, but he wanted me to be around. I was kind of his protective big brother or something.

"Bianca called me today", Nico said after a few minutes of silence. "In the Starbucks and then after we got back here. Told me to be careful with fame and all that bullshit. I think she's just jealous for not having the talent we have."

I smiled as I heard the sarcasm in his voice. I had taught him well. "I think she's right, though", I said. "There are good publicity and bad publicity. You know what Chiron always says, that we have to avoid bad publicity the best we can, but we can't do that forever."

"When did you become so smart?"

"I didn't", I laughed and stood up, grabbing my towel from one of the benches. "That's Annabeth's job, being smart." I messed his hair before starting to walk back inside and he groaned. He hated when I did that. "See you in the morning, kiddo. Don't think too much – you know, stuff. It's not good for you."

It seemed that Hestia had left while I was swimming, and as I glanced at the clock in our living room I was kind of surprised to see it was eleven already. On second floor I knocked on both Thalia's and Annabeth's doors and said good night. That's what I always did, and I knew just how much Thalia hated it, so I wasn't going to stop. Beckendorf had his door open and he seemed to be on his computer, so I popped in.

"Hey, bud", he smiled as I stepped in and I saw that he was on Skype with Leo, his little brother. "Had a good time swimming?"

"Yeah", I waved my hand to Leo and smiled. "Hey Leo, how's it going on Long Island?"

Leo was short and had a brown curly hair, and his smile yelled _I AM SO MUCH TROUBLE._ He was ADHD just like me, but he had it worse. He always needed to have something to do with his hands, and now he was playing with a Rubik's cube. He was on Long Island on that camp we all used to go a couple of years ago. He was there with our mutual friend Nyssa and Thalia's brother Jason, and Silena said her sister Piper was going there too. Jason was actually a counselor already, being two years younger than me, and so was Piper. Leo, despite his small form, was the same age as Nico.

"Oh, man, it's great!" Leo grinned. I could see that he was in his cabin, because he had so many weird things around him, like the mechanic toothbrush that worked as his alarm clock. He had designed that himself, and he was actually very proud of it. "Mr. D is annoying as ever, but that doesn't stop us. The Stolls have been pranking like no tomorrow all summer. We had a great game of capture the flag on Friday, our team won – obviously, with Sir Leo in charge with Captain Jason. Oh, and guess what!" His smile grew even wilder and I was worried about his cheeks. "I caught Jason and Piper together from the strawberry fields yesterday! They told me not to tell anyone, which basically means everyone knew before dinner."

Me and Beckendorf laughed. What a great counselor Jason was. I chatted with Leo and Beckendorf a bit more and then went to my own room. It was almost midnight and I had a best friend's sleepover to attend, and I had to take a shower before that.

Annabeth was already sitting on my bed when I came from the bathroom wearing my pajamas. She had taken our cupcakes from the table and her laptop was in front of her, so I assumed we'd be watching some movie. Her hair was braided loosely and it fell down from her left shoulder and she was wearing her old orange camp-t-shirt with her gray pajama-shorts. I thought she looked stunning, but I didn't say anything about that or let it blow my mind. It was starting to become a routine, really.

"Leo said Jason and Piper are sort of dating now", I said quietly as I made myself comfortable on my bed. Annabeth didn't seem surprised when she smiled at me and moved to sit next to me. "It's weird, though. Does that make Thals and Beckendorf related somehow? You know, what with Beckendorf dating Silena and all."

She resisted the urge to laugh out loud, muttering something about me thinking too much about the weird stuff, and instead put her laptop in front of us. "We're watching a movie", she said and rested her head on my shoulder. "I had my pick so now it's your choice: Perks Of Being A Wallflower or Skyfall?"

"Didn't we watch Skyfall just two weeks ago?" I asked as I watched her open Netflix. "What's this Perks Of Being A Wallflower about?"

"Let's find out."

We watched the movie in silence, eating our cupcakes and enjoying each other's company. I had my other arm around Annabeth's shoulders the whole time, and she relaxed against me like she always did. If someone would have come in while we were watching the movie, they'd probably think we were a couple, which we weren't. As I played with some curls that had escaped her braid I wondered if it was a good or a bad thing. I didn't get an appropriate answer to that before the end of the movie, when I realized Annabeth had cried at some point without me even noticing. But now that I thought about it, it was actually a pretty sad movie. That Charlie-kid had had quite a life.

"You okay?" I asked worriedly. She just nodded and closed the laptop, putting it on my nightstand next to a framed photo of me, my mom, Paul and herself. It was taken last Christmas, when Annabeth and Thalia spent it with us back in New York. It was a happy Christmas really, even my dad dropped by to say hello to me and Thals. It was also just a month after Annabeth's break-up with Luke, and she was still a bit messed up while taking the picture.

"I'm fine", she whispered. She sounded very tired. "I think we'd better get some sleep. I was up late last night, I found this very interesting website about Daedalus – you know, from Greek mythology, son of Athena, invented the labyrinth for king Minos?"

"Yeah, that's about how much I remember about him", I said, getting under the covers and looking at her with raised eyebrows. "You wanna stay up here with me and my awesomeness or are you going back to your room to sleep alone in your cold bed?"

Annabeth rolled her eyes in the dark (I didn't see it, but I almost heard it). She didn't need my stupid comments, and the question itself was fairly stupid. "I'm staying, thank you very much." Of course she was. She lied down next to me and used my chest as her pillow – not the first time, it was normal for us. I reached to shut the lights and then got back. "It's called a sleepover for a good reason, Seaweed Brain."

"I know." I wrapped my arms around her waste and she snuggled closer. She'd kill me for telling you this, but Annabeth was an extremely cuddly sleeper. It was okay for me, though. "Good night, Wise Girl."

"Nightie, Perce", she said very quietly, almost asleep. "Love you."

It felt good to hear those words, even though we used them a lot and I knew she didn't mean them quite the same way I did. I smiled sadly to her curls. "Love you, too."

* * *

_**Author's Note**:_

_So that was the first chapter, please review, follow and favorite and tell me if I should continue publishing this! Also go and check out my other stories, too.  
_


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note**: I seriously love all you who have followed, favorited and reviewed this story, I wasn't expecting to get any! It's heart warming, really. As for the requested Annabeth's POV... well, I don't think there's going to be any. I'm not saying it's impossible, I've just been thinking about this story in Percy's POV only. We'll see.

I'm personally not really in love with this chapter, but you make your own decisions about this. I promise next one's going to be better. Also not all updates will be this quick, that's another promise.

* * *

**Chapter 2**

It was only about two weeks after we had released our first album _Six Degrees Of Separation _that I got a call from my dad from New York City. It was the first one after he had last visited in the end of May when we released our first single from the album and became famous, and it was already the last day of July, so I was actually kind of waiting for it, but it still surprised me that dad found the time to call me. I knew Hestia would let him know if something major happened (like if I found a sudden urge to jump out of the window – not like it happened a lot, just that one time in my birthday party last year), but I guess it just felt good to know that he really cared so much he wanted to make the call himself.

"_Heard that duet of yours from the radio again this morning_", he said after asking me a lot of questions about how I was doing, if Nico was still an emo and if Annabeth and I were still as close as the last time he called, and I could hear him smile. It was a tad too early in the morning for my personal liking and I was standing outside in the morning breeze without my shirt on by the pool so that I wouldn't wake anyone up, but I couldn't really get mad at my dad for asking how I was doing. "_They've been playing it a lot for a couple of weeks now. Great voice you have there, Percy, you should sing more. And it sounds like you're pretty good with the guitar, too._"

"Well, I'm okay, I guess", I said, rubbing the back of my neck a bit awkwardly. I didn't get compliments from my dad that often. Not that he ignored me or something, we just didn't talk much. And I didn't give a comment on the singing, not being sure what I felt about the whole deal yet. "I still need a lot of practice."

"_Everyone needs practice, son_", dad laughed and I let out nervous laugh, too. "_Listen, I gotta go now, I have a meeting in ten minutes, but I'm coming to L.A. for your birthday in a couple of weeks, so make sure you have some time to spend with your old daddy, too, okay?_"

"Sure."

"_And Percy_", he stopped for a second and it sounded like he stopped walking, too. For a few seconds I didn't hear a thing. Then he spoke again, sounding a bit troubled, like he didn't quite know how to say what he was about to say. I knew the feeling better than well – it was the feeling I always had when talking to my dad. "_I know I don't say this as much as I should, and it might seem like I don't care, but you have to remember that I love you, okay? Remember that, Percy. And I'm very proud to tell everyone that the famous Percy Jackson, the guitarist of Camp Half-Blood, is my son._"

I smiled to myself (and ignored the little voice inside me saying that I didn't know if dad really meant it or if he just said it to make me feel just a little bit better) and heard voices from one of the balconies. I looked up and saw Thalia in her pajamas, lighting up a cigarette. What a rebel. "Thanks, dad."

"_I'm proud of you_", dad said again and ended the call. I sighed and held my phone kind of awkwardly since I was still wearing only my pajama pants and I didn't have any pockets. I sat down on the edge of the pool and put my feet in the cold water, making a mental note to buy some pajama pants with pockets the next time we went shopping with Annabeth (which really didn't happen that often, since Annabeth actually hated shopping almost as much as I did, which basically meant we didn't go shopping more than was absolutely necessary).

"Was that your dad?" Thalia asked from the balcony as I lied myself down on the cold ceramics. I told her that it was, and she let out some smoke. She had been smoking for almost a year now, ever since we started recording and she decided she needed to let all the stress out somehow (although I think she just wanted to be a rebel and do exactly what her dad told her not to). I had found the smoking a little surprising at first since her father used to have a bad case of lung cancer. But I didn't say anything, I never did, though I was a little bit worried about her health – both mental and physical. "What's up in New York?"

"Nothing much that I'd know about." I closed my eyes and enjoyed the rising sun and slowly warming breeze on the bare skin of my chest. "He didn't have much time to talk. Just said that he had heard _Good Time_ on the radio and was proud of us."

"Cool. Wish my dad called me every now and then." She said it so quietly I wasn't sure if I was supposed to hear, so I didn't reply.

Family was a hard subject to Thalia. Her mother had always been a little "off the rocket" as her brother Jason put it, and it was the biggest reason their father (my very dear Uncle Zeus) left when Jason was just born. Thalia was four and Jason was two when their mother completely lost it and tried to kill Jason with a fork during family dinner on Thanksgiving ("the greatest sacrifice a mother can give the gods is her oldest son", if I remember her words correctly), which was super creepy, but luckily Thalia and I were able to slow her down in all our four-year-old greatness just enough so that my mom, dad and Nico's parents and Uncle Zeus, who were chatting in the next room, could hear her scream. Uncle Zeus held their mother until the police came, and that was the last time Thalia saw her mother.

Now Mrs Grace was locked up in a mental hospital in Canada, and since Uncle Zeus never really liked kids in the first place (no one understood why he bothered to see his kids at all) and traveled a lot due to his business, Thalia and Jason were practically raised by their man-hater Aunt Artemis. Tough luck for Jason, I'd say. But the point was that no one really cared to call Thalia every once in a while to ask how she was doing – well, except for Jason and my mom, who worried about everyone and loved Thals, Jason, Nico, Bianca, Annabeth and Beckendorf like they were all her own children. It was pretty cool, because I'd always wanted siblings but remained the only child when my parents broke up and neither mom or dad seemed to be having more kids any time soon (even though I knew for a fact that there had been one close call with mom and Paul, but I'll tell you about it later).

"Hey, Perce", Thalia interrupted my thoughts and I opened my eyes to see that she had finished smoking for now and was looking down at me grinning wilder than a Cheshire cat. "How would you feel about having an extempore Twitcam in half an hour? No one else's up yet and I'm kind of bored."

I smiled widely and stood up. "You bet! I haven't had a Twitcam in two months! I'll just go and have a quick shower and get dressed, you bring your laptop to my room and see that everything's ready, okay?"

Walking back inside I sent a quick tweet (" KelpHeadPercy: #Twitcam w/ Sparky in 30mins! Be tuned!") and immediately saw how our fans reacted. It was a crazy thought that we actually had _fans_, and I was having a hard time getting used to the fact that we were one of the most popular bands in the world at the moment. It was just mind-blowing, and every time I thought about it I had a stupid smile on my face. Like, how did we end up here? Just seven months ago no one had ever heard of me, and now everyone knew who I was, where I came from and (thanks to Nico and Thalia) that I used to have a teddy bear called Bessie.

Surprisingly, though, we had all managed to keep our personal lives mostly to ourselves. Everyone knew my mom and step-dad lived in New York, but no one knew that mom had been fighting a bad case of brain cancer only two years ago. They knew Annabeth never really knew her mother, but no one had told them her mom wasn't exactly dead and that she didn't get along with her dad, step-mom and step-brothers. Nico told in an interview that his parents were dead and that he had lived with my family since he was twelve, but they leaved Bianca alone. Thalia didn't tell anything to anyone, but it was a commonly known fact that her mother wasn't around, that Jason meant everything to her and that her father was the all-mighty Zeus Grace. And it wasn't a secret that my dad and Thalia's dad hardly ever agreed on anything, one of the only things being that they were too busy to raise their own kids.

Beckendorf's personal life however wasn't that private. He had been dating Silena Beaugaurd for almost a year now. Her mother used to be a very famous top model (everyone called her Aphrodite but no one remembered her real name) and Silena was following her footsteps closely, so she couldn't avoid the paparazzi (it didn't help that her mother seemed to tell the paparazzi where Silena was just to get more publicity). So where ever Silena and Beckendorf went, there was always a ton of people asking questions and taking pictures, and they barely had any time alone. That's why Silena spent so much time in our house, since her mother was so annoying she wouldn't leave them alone for two full minutes.

Well, they didn't really have their space here, either. Me and Annabeth were "fighting" all the time very loudly. Nico seemed to think that PDA was the devil making his life the living hell. Thalia took the role of being the annoying sister a little too far and wouldn't let Silena and Beckendorf go without playing a long and frustrating game of Cluedo with her. But Silena was cool, and she liked to spend time with us all, and sometimes she had her video camera with her, making home videos of us fooling around, playing random songs and making pizza. (Note to self: Nico + Thalia + Leo via Skype + tomato sauce = catastrophe. Make sure that there's a lot of towels nearby and don't forget to cover your hair with a plastic bag.)

I changed into some khaki shorts and a simple tee with a smiley face on it. Thalia came in not two minutes later with her laptop, and we lied down on my bed side by side. While we waited for the show time to come we checked Twitter and made a list of the things that our fans wanted to know the most. Seemed like there were many questions considering when we would have our first tour (we had decided on the starting month and a few cities but hadn't told the press yet) and if we were already working on another album (half of the songs were already recorded while making the first one, but we weren't going to really say that). Ten minutes until show time Silena retweeted me and told everyone to watch. " Beaugaurd123: Everyone remember to watch Percy and Thalia's #Twitcam! Me and Charlie are watching, any minute now!"

I favorited her tweet and typed: " KelpHeadPercy: Beaugaurd123 Good to know that at least someone's watching! :D"

" Beaugaurd123: KelpHeadPercy Don't be ridiculous, I'm your biggest fan!"

"Well won't you look at that", Thalia laughed as she read our tweeting over my shoulder. "Our little Percy's got his own fan club! Who's gonna start mine?"

"You can always ask Leo. I think he'd be delighted to lead the Thalia Grace Fan Club."

Thalia snorted and started the thirty-second count down for our Twitcam. "That idiot's got time for only his own personal Team Leo. I would say it's almost sad that he's the only member, but I'd be lying."

We laughed and joked about Leo before it was time for broadcasting. "And we are on!" I smiled at the web camera and Thalia decided that was the perfect time to punch my shoulder. "Ouch! Way to start this, Sparky!"

"Don't be a baby", she rolled her eyes. "Anyway, what's up, guys? We're here again, it's been a long time since the last Twitcam, but we're going to answer some of your questions from Twitter. Today you will find out things like who's the biggest fangirl in our band and what is Percy's darkest secret!"

"No you won't", I said and glared at her. "Even you don't know that one."

Damn Thalia and her devilish faces. I was really starting to hate her. "Of course I know! Or have you already forgotten about your Miss Piggy costume?"

Even though Miss Piggy wasn't my darkest secret (not even close, thank you very much), my face went red and Thalia started to laugh her head off. I knew this was a bad idea. (Okay, I didn't, and this wasn't very bad, but I had always wanted to say that and besides, it was still overly embarrassing.) "Oh God, I wish I had forgotten about that! It was one of the most embarrassing things in my entire life!"

"And that's really saying something!" Thalia smirked and turned towards the camera. "Let me explain. When Percy had his sixteenth birthday, we had this rather big party with our twenty closest friends, including the five of us and some friends from our camp. At that time Percy's favorite drink was Smirnoff dyed blue – I guess we'll explain the blue later – so you can imagine how much of that disappeared that day."

"Do you really have to tell this?" I asked, hiding my face to my hands. "I was doing so well forgetting it!"

"Of course I do! Anyway, we had this fantastic game of truth or dare, in which Percy was getting the worst tasks, not wanting to answer a couple of questions. So there he was, dressed as Miss Piggy, flirting with his neighbor Mark Sloan. Sloan, if you're watching, just know that it was hilarious, no matter how much you disliked it!"

Once the story was over, I almost sighed in relief until I saw a tweet coming from Silena. To my ultimate dislike, Thalia noticed it too.

"Oh, look at that, Silena sent us a picture of Percy as Miss Piggy!" she laughed and opened the picture. I couldn't even look at it, I was feeling horrible. Thalia laughed and retweeted it for all her followers to see. "I'm so changing that to my lock screen!"

"Okay, moving on!" I said as I saw all the tweets from our fans, laughing at the picture of me. I checked the next thing on our list. "Let's see... Right, our first tour. We are actually going to have a world tour some time next year, but we are not quite sure when. We'll have a meeting concerning the tour next month, if I remember correctly. As for the countries, we haven't got anything decided yet, but you can go to our website, there's a poll concerning the tour, so vote for your country there."

"I don't know if I should be excited or terrified about the fact that we're going to share a tour bus with you guys for, like, two or three months", Thalia said thoughtfully. "I think I'd be fine if it was just me and Annabeth and maybe Beckendorf, but with you and Nico there? And not to mention that Grover's probably going to be there, too. It's gonna be disastrous."

"What is going to be disastrous? What are you guys doing?"

Me and Thalia turned to look at Annabeth, who had appeared to my door, leaning on the door frame. She was wearing simple denim shorts and one of the old tees she had stolen from me just a week ago, and her hair was on a pony tail. She had a cup of coffee in her hands, and the thought of caffeine made my head spin.

"Good morning, lovely Annabeth", I smiled, sat up and took the cup from her as she came closer. I took a sip of the coffee and gave the cup back to her while she rubbed her face. She still seemed to have a little sleep in her beautiful eyes. "We're having a Twitcam, talking about the upcoming tour. Wanna join us?"

She placed the cup on my bedside table and I went back to lie beside Thals. "I can't believe you", Annabeth muttered as she sat on my back and leaned forward, resting her chin on my shoulder and swatting me to the back of my head. "Hi guys, sorry to tell you this but Percy's an idiot. He just doesn't understand that as my best friend it is his duty to wake me up if he's going to do something fun and interesting like having a random Twitcam with his cousin early in the morning when he's usually still fast asleep."

"Sorry, didn't get the memo", I muttered with a slightly annoyed voice and Annabeth laughed lightly. She made herself comfortable on top of me, and I didn't complain. It was rather nice to have her there to be honest. I felt whole. Sometimes it truly felt like me and Annabeth were the two sides of the same person, that we weren't really complete without the other.

"Excuse me, Miss Chase, but I thought _I_ was your best friend!" Thalia exclaimed with a pout. It was my turn to laugh as Annabeth rolled her eyes.

"You used to be. Then you 'accidentally' broke my phone last winter."

"It _was_ an accident!"

"Whatever you say, Pinecone Face", Annabeth laughed using the nickname we invented back when we were seven or eight. "You still owe me that. I'd actually like to have an iPhone, iPhone 5 to be exact, thank you very much. You have time 'til Christmas."

"It's not even out yet!"

Annabeth ruffed Thalia's hair. I wasn't gonna tell my dear cousin that Annabeth would never really want an iPhone.

"How is that my problem?"

"Gee, love you too."

We continued the Twitcam, telling about the tour and revealing the release date of our next album and stuff, bickering along the way as much as possible and slapping each other a bit too hard a bit too many times for my liking. All the time we had more and more watchers, breaking my personal record after about fifteen minutes. It was insane, I'd never thought that we'd really become famous! Silena and Beckendorf sent some tweets during the Twitcam, telling their opinion on stuff, and Thalia checked the time every now and then to see if it was already time to wake up Nico by throwing a bucket of icy water on him.

"And the next question is from DaraLovesPercy – cool user name, by the way", I grinned and Thalia snorted at my remark. "The question is, who is the biggest fangirl from us. I like this question, because I hate the term fanboy. Seriously, it just sounds so horribly wrong. Okay, ADHD kicking in, don't ask."

"The biggest fangirl..." Thalia mused, not caring about my babbling. (Now that I think about it, it was actually a bit odd that she didn't comment it in any way... Maybe she was getting sick or something? That wasn't really like her, not teasing me when she got the chance. I guess I should watch my back for later bickering.) "I guess that'd be you, Perce. If you ever had the chance, you'd watch Glee 24/7 and not bother to write songs anymore, just sing the ones they sing on the show over and over again."

"True", I said, smirking. "I mean, Glee's awesome, and have you actually heard their covers? Most of them are pure masterpieces, beating the original versions hands down! But I still have to say that the biggest fangirl is Nico, no one else. Surely you can't disagree with that? Is there even a TV-show he doesn't watch all the time? Glee, of course, but also How I Met Your Mother, The Big bang Theory, Downtown Abbey, Supernatural, New Girl, Pretty Little Liars..."

"Doctor Who, Hannibal, Robin Hood, Mentalist, Dexter", Annabeth continued, and I heard her smile. (It was a bit sad I couldn't see her face, but she was so close to me that I really couldn't complain.)

"BBC Sherlock, Torchwood, 90210", Thalia counted with her fingers. "Teen Wolf, Girls, Who's Line Is It Anyway. What else? Reruns of Friends, Merlin and Gossip Girl, sometimes Desperate Housewives and – believe it or not – Sex And The City. I just walked in on him watching it the other day!"

"_And_ he is a huge Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Starkid fan", Annabeth pointed out. "Yep, the fangirl torch goes to – drumbeat please –" she tapped my head with both her hands like she she was playing the drums "– Nico Christopher di Angelo."

"Don't forget Star Wars and Star Trek", I said and laughed, as we started to get some tweets asking how Nico found the time to watch all that. "And Marvel. I'm almost as surprised as I'm relieved that he hates Twilight with a burning passion. He should change his name to Nico di Fangirl or something."

I started to roll down the tweets, checking if there was anything interesting, and Annabeth and Thalia continued talking about the TV-shows Nico watched. They seemed to realize only now how many shows he watched, and actually it was kind of creeping me out. I thought I was obsessed with TV, but Nico was a real slave for everything. Somehow I hoped it was just a phase, like his wearing-all-green when he was eight and eating-all-vegetables a year and a half ago, but knowing Nico that was hardly the case. I could only hope that he still had time for real people every now and then.

I was brought out of my thoughts by Annabeth, who shifted on top of me and checked my face if I was still awake.

"I'm getting a feeling Kelp Head is feeling all too comfortable under my best friend", Thalia said, and I did everything in my power not to make my face seem as flushed as it felt. "It's time to make him see reality for a while. Annabeth, would you be so kind and read me these three tweets I am pointing out to you?"

I didn't even bother looking at the tweets. I knew it was going to be something probably very embarrassing to read out loud, so I hid my face to my pillow as Annabeth read out the first one.

"This is from eXtravagant007. _Percy, stop being so awfully cute and just kiss her already. Percabeth 4ever!_" I heard Thalia trying (and failing) to hide a laugh. "Percy, something tells me the rumors are still going strong."

"Just read, Annabeth." I hated it when she teased me with Thalia in Twitcams. She always apologized afterwards, but she also said she loved it at the same time. Asshole.

"Okay, the second one is from HelloSweetie." She paused for a second. "I'm pretty sure that one's from Doctor Who. Anyway." Another pause. "Thalia, I hate you."

"Go on, don't be shy. Read the tweet."

Annabeth sounded really uncomfortable and when she read the tweet, I understood perfectly well why. (But if she didn't read it, Thalia was going to read it, and then it would have been at least a hundred times worse, so she did.) "_Percy looks all too happy and Annabeth doesn't look far from coming either._" It was official. I hated my cousin. "Thalia, first of all, I'm not going to read that third one. Second, you do realize that was just plain rude and made Percy feel like shit and me hate you ten times more than I ever have?"

"One more question and we're out", I said, finally lifting my head from the pillow and glaring at Thalia. "Annabeth, choose."

She chose one concerning Beckendorf and Silena, and we decided to wait for Silena to answer that herself. After that we said our goodbyes, ended the Twitcam, closed the laptop and kicked Thalia out of my room. She left, muttering something about touchy girls and annoying little slime balls, and slammed the door shut behind her. After a couple of minutes we could hear Green Day blasting from the living room and Hestia (who was there to cook us some lunch, like she did every other Saturday) yelling at her to turn it down.

Annabeth rolled off of me and lied on her back beside me. I could feel her looking at my face, but I just looked at the wrinkled spot on my bed sheet where Thalia's laptop had been. I couldn't look at her. I couldn't risk her seeing my face. I couldn't risk her seeing what I was thinking. I couldn't risk losing my best friend.

"I'm not talking to her for three days, minimum." I finally looked at Annabeth, and saw that her face was deadly serious. "I mean it. It would have been okay if she was just teasing me, or even if her picking on you would have been funny – "

"Gee, thanks, love you, too."

" – but that was just cruel. I mean, I know _I_ look good, and I'm basically the perfect girlfriend material and all that shit, but how can they even think that I would ever be turned on by someone like _you_? Like, can you even read?"

I hit her with the pillow and she laughed. This was one of the things I really loved about Annabeth. Not the fact that she turned embarrassing things into funny ones in the matter of seconds, or that she really knew how to pick an aggressive pillow fight, even though those were among her best qualities too. I loved that she by no means thought that she was the "perfect girlfriend material", even though she was. She didn't see her as the funny, gorgeous, smart, breathtakingly beautiful and amazing human being I saw in her every day. I mean, she didn't see herself beautiful _at all_, no matter how many times me and other guys told her that she was more than just beautiful. She didn't believe me, because as her best friend she thought I'd say anything to make her feel pretty (partly true). She didn't believe the others because she just simply thought they lied. She was insecure, so insecure that it would have been funny if it wasn't so wrong it sometimes felt like a physical pain in my chest.

We had planned to use the whole day for practice, starting after lunch. We all went to the basement to our band room, me after first picking up my notebook and Riptide from my room and Beckendorf after finding his new drum sticks that came from the mail just two days ago. We were supposed to go through any new songs we had come up to, and since neither me nor Annabeth were talking to Thalia (who had told everything about the Twitcam to Nico and Beckendorf during lunch), Beckendorf decided to start by telling that he only had one new song but that he was working on another. He sat down by the piano and started playing, fumbling with the keys at first but then getting used to it.

I'd always liked to watch Beckendorf play the piano. They had a beautiful old grad piano in his father's house, and he had told me the sad story behind it. Apparently it belonged to his mother and her father before that, and she used to play it every night when Beckendorf was young. When she died in the fire accident at work when Beckendorf was only nine, his father was about to sell the instrument. Beckendorf managed to talk him to save it, promising him he'd learn how to play it just as well as his mother. So the piano stayed, even though his father didn't really want to stay around listening when it was played.

So piano had been Beckendorf's first instrument, and he still had the talent, but now that he was fully on drumming he didn't have much time to focus on piano. But he sure knew how, and when he did play, it was beautiful.

The song he played this time was a slow ballad. He played the melody with his right hand and chimed in with his left, and his eyes were closed the whole time. I found myself tapping my fingers to the amplifier I was sitting on, and heard Annabeth hum along when Beckendorf reached the second chorus.

"I call it _A Thousand Years_", he said as he slowly finished the song. "Partly because it took me a thousand years to finally finish the song, and partly because it fits with the lyrics." He took a folded paper from his back pocket and looked at the wrinkles in it hesitantly for a couple of seconds before giving it to Annabeth. "Here are the lyrics. And, uh, before you read it, there's actually something I want to ask you guys. Or better yet, something I want to tell you."

We all looked at him expectantly. I was confused. Beckendorf hardly ever asked us anything, and he wasn't one to tell things dramatically. Of course he always told us when something was wrong, but this time he didn't seem that troubled. He actually seemed more surprised than anything.

"I have decided", he started, and if it wasn't been for his wide smile that was spreading on his face I would have feared he was resigning from the band, "that one day in the next couple of months – or years, depends on my nerves – I am going to ask Silena to marry me. And before you say anything", he raised his voice, because we had all started to talk at the same time, "I'm not going anywhere. I'm not one of those who get married then leave the band struggling, and let's face it, you wouldn't last a month without me."

I couldn't even begin to say how happy I was for him. Really. Him and Silena deserved this, they deserved the happy ending and Disney-happily-ever-after. Seeing his shining face as we cheered at him and clapped his back, Annabeth and Thalia hugging him so tight I was afraid they were going to strangle him, I saw definitely the happiest bloke I'd seen for maybe a year or two, pretty much since my Mom and Paul's anniversary party. This was amazing, this was absolutely fantastic.

"Not a word to Silena or Piper, or actually anyone, okay? Not even Hestia", Beckendorf made us promise but couldn't stop smiling. "The plan stays in this room. I can't risk Silena hearing from anyone, but I had to tell you, guys. You're my only family besides Dad and Leo, and I already told Dad and I'm sure as hell not going to tell Leo." We all laughed at that, knowing pretty damn well that you couldn't tell Leo anything you wanted to keep secret. "So, anyway, about this song. I know it's, like, _so_ straight forward, but in the crazy scenario that she actually says yes and there is an actual _wedding_ – which, by the way, gives me jitters already – I would like you guys to perform this song there, as our first song. If it's okay."

There was only one possible answer to that. "Of course we will", I smiled, and somehow he looked relieved. "It would be an honor. Really."

We talked a little about the possible (very possible, if you asked me) wedding and the proposal and did he actually have anything accurate planned yet (he said he had a pretty good idea how, but had no clue when he would have the nerve to really pop the question), until we decided to try the song. Beckendorf played it a couple of more times, I started to take a riff and Annabeth folded out the paper with the lyrics and hummed along, singing the words in her mind. Thalia had her eyes closed as she sat down behind her keyboards and nodded her head to the rhythm. In no time Beckendorf moved from the piano to the drums and counted us to go. Annabeth began singing, smile still on her beautiful lips and making every single note sound more alive than anything.

"_Heart beats fast, colors and promises. How to be brave? How can I love when I'm afraid to fall? Watching you stand alone. All of my doubt suddenly goes away somehow._" I loved the song already. It was beautiful, it was like an angel painting a picture of an angel. Part of my adoring was of course to Annabeth's voice, but that was irrelevant.

"_One step closer... I have died every day waiting for you. Darling, don't be afraid; I have loved you for a thousand years. I'll love you for a thousand more._" Oh, the lyrics! Anyone would love them, anyone! "_Time stands still. Beauty and all she is. I will be brave, I will not let anything take away what's standing in front of me. Every breath, every hour has come to this. One step closer._"

Somehow, I don't know why, I found myself thinking about Annabeth. (Yes, again. I didn't seem likely that I could go a minute without thinking about her. Call me crazy.) I was looking at her while she sang, and I played, and she was looking so happy, so alive, like every time she sang. Her eyes were shining brightly, she carried her self with a different kind of courage, and at that moment I promised myself that someday, not soon, not in the next few months or maybe even years, but some day, I would tell her. I would tell her I loved her, that I was in love with her. She was my best friend, she ought to know.

"_I have died every day waiting for you. Darling, don't be afraid; I have loved you for a thousand years. I'll love you for a thousand more. 'Cause all along I believed I would find you. Time has brought your heart to me. I have loved you for a thousand years, I'll love you for a thousand more._"

The song eventually ended, and we were all in awe, looking at Annabeth, who cried. Actually _cried_. Annabeth Chase didn't cry. Yes, I had seen her cry probably more than anyone, and so had Thalia, but we were her best friends, so it was kind of different. I was pretty sure this was the very first time Nico or Beckendorf had seen her cry, other than the one time she broke down in the studio in the middle of recording.

But she was smiling. Tears were making their way down her cheeks and she quickly wiped them away and sniffed, but she was smiling, so I thought she was pretty okay. And I also thought she looked very beautiful when she cried and smiled, but I didn't say anything, of course.

"I, uh", she laughed a little and sniffed again, and looked at the paper in her hands. "Oh my god. This is beautiful. Absolutely adorable."

We all agreed, and since Annabeth was still trying to keep her emotions in check Beckendorf stood up and came to give her a bear hug. Had it been anyone out of the band, I would have been extremely jealous, but these guys were our family. (And I had to remind myself that there was no reason for me to be jealous. We weren't even dating, for heaven's sake!) Beckendorf was our brother in every way except for the blood, and it would have been seriously stupid to even think of being jealous of him hugging her. I really needed to sort out my thoughts.

After a lot more hugging and smiling and a couple of tears and a few quick checks in the mirror Annabeth was back to normal, looking at the lyrics and humming softly while we others were talking about how we should continue with the song.

"Nico, I think you should take your cello for this", I said after giving it a little thought. Nico had played the cello since he was seven, and he was pretty good, but he didn't like that as much as he liked the bass guitar. Still the cello was a nice adding to our band every now and then. "Do you think you can compose something for it?"

Nico shrugged and made a couple of notes to his notebook. "Yeah, no problem. I gotta check if my cello is still in business, though, it's been a while."

"Okay, does anyone else have any songs for us? Percy?" Annabeth looked at me. I knew she knew I had many songs ready, and she had heard a couple of them, but I didn't think any of them were ready for the band yet. She said _I_ wasn't ready, and maybe so, but I just thought that I needed to fix them a little before telling others about them. So I just shook my head. "Okay. Anyone else? Do I really have to shoot you with another boring my-life-sucks-let's-make-a-hit-from-it -song?"

She looked around, and just as she was about to pick up her notebook Nico said quietly, "I have one. It's just so depressing I doubt you'd like to hear it at all."

I had a feeling this was going to be quite intense, but still I just nodded and encouraged him to go on. He knew the basics on piano and could carry a note well enough, so he sat down behind the piano just like Beckendorf only moments earlier. He played for a couple minutes, probably trying to find the right tempo, then started singing softly.

"_She put him out like a burnin' end of a midnight cigarette. She broke his heart, he spent his whole life tryin' to forget. We watched him drink his pain away, a little at a time, but he never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind until the night..._"

I didn't say anything, but I had heard this one before. Or parts of it, it wasn't ready by the time I heard it. It was a couple of years ago, when Nico was living with me and my parents. He had been playing this song in his room, the door was slightly open, and my mom had been sitting by the door, her back to the wall, crying silently and looking out of the window. I was pretty sure the song had something to do with Bianca, Nico's sister, because he was muttering about a sister under his breath, but I never had the courage to ask him about it, or even let him know we had been listening to him. It had felt too personal, it still did.

"_He put that bottle to his head and pulled the trigger and finally drank away her memory. Life is short but this time it was bigger than the strength he had to get up off his knees._" Annabeth, who was standing next to me listening carefully, slipped her hand in mine, and without looking I knew she was close to crying again. I squeezed her hand and she squeezed back, running her thumb across my knuckles. "_We found him with his face down in the pillow with a note that said 'I'll love her till I die'. And when we buried him beneath the willow the angels sang a whiskey lullaby._"

The song was great, it was phenomenal, I had to admit. But if it was the song for our band... well, that we had to talk about. The next verse I had never heard before, but it kind of made me want to cry, too.

"_The rumors flew but nobody knew how much she blamed herself. For years and years she tried to hide the whiskey in her breath. She finally drank her pain away, a little at a time, but she never could get drunk enough to get him off her mind, until the night she put that bottle to her head and pulled the trigger and finally drank away his memory. Life is short but this time it was bigger than the strength she had to get up off her knees. We found her with her face down in the pillow, clinging to his picture for dear life. We laid her next to him beneath the willow while the angels sang a whiskey lullaby._"

When Nico stopped, the band room was so eerily quiet that we all could very well hear him sniffing softly before he took his notebook and stood up. His face was hollow, his eyes were dead, and he was starting to shake uncontrollably. It had been a while since I last saw him like that, and I didn't like it at all.

"I'm sorry", he said, his voice barely audible, as if he didn't trust it anymore. "I... I though I could do this, but... Sorry." And he stormed out of the room to his bedroom, slamming the door shut and leaving the rest of us confused and scared out of our minds.

Me and Annabeth looked at each other, and I knew exactly what she was thinking. _What the hell was that?_

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**Author's Note**: That's it for now, let's see how many reviews we can get to the next chapter! Love you guys!


	3. Chapter 3

_**Author's Note: **_

_Don't I just LOVE the reviews, keep them coming guys! They're so wonderful it's almost illegal. Here's a cookie for everyone who reviewed: (::)(::)(::) _

_ANYWAY, I'm here with a new chapter, hope you guys like it!_

* * *

As my birthday came closer, I realized my father had been serious about coming to L.A. to see me and the others. A week before the day I would turn nineteen he called me saying he would like to have dinner with me the next day, and I couldn't say no, so I spent an awkward two-hour dinner talking to Dad about recordings and the new songs I was composing. We had released our first album a couple of weeks back and also three music videos, and it was incredible to see that we already had so many fans.

I also talked to Dad about Nico, who hadn't really been himself since the day he had left the band room in the middle of practice. I had tried to talk to him, but every time I looked him and opened my mouth to say something, his face seemed too broken and I decided to let him be. But I was worried, he was spending more and more time on his own, and that hadn't happened a lot in the past couple of years. He had been doing so great with his depression after we started the band, but I guess it was only a matter of time.

Dad didn't know what was wrong with Nico, or so he said, but he promised to ask around, make a few calls to some people who used to be close with Nico's parents. I really hoped he could find out something. I hated being so curious, but my cousin had me worried sick.

On other news, not any happier than the ones before, it was harder and harder to keep my feelings to myself around Annabeth anymore. I didn't know what had changed lately, but every now and then I caught her staring at me with a weird look in her eyes, and when I asked her about it she always shrugged it off as nothing. We were having a lot of best friend sleepovers, and more than often they ended with watching a movie and me almost slipping and telling Annabeth how I felt about her. I was seriously considering avoiding her, but she was my best friend. I couldn't do that to her, and to be totally honest with myself, I doubted I could go two hours without seeing her or talking to her.

I was doomed – and also a little creeped out by myself, which wasn't anything new.

On the eve of my birthday there was a knock on my door, but before I could say anything Beckendorf stepped in. Nothing unusual though, that's what basically everyone did. They didn't stop to think that maybe my door was closed for a reason. Well, it didn't really matter, because there wasn't much I could be doing. I was decent 90% of the time, and usually when my door was closed it was just me and Annabeth hanging around, or just me, doing nothing in particular. But it still annoyed me to no end that no one cared to wait for an answer. I seriously thought about putting a lock to the door. Didn't sound half that bad.

"Percy – oh, great, Annabeth's here too!" he smiled a somewhat evil smile. It was rarely seen on his face, so I immediately had a bad feeling about it. I glanced at Annabeth, who was lying at the other end of my bed while I sat on my pillow playing with Riptide. "I needed to talk to both of you, actually."

Annabeth put her laptop away as if to say that he had her full attention, but I just kept playing a random mix of The Doors songs, looking at him warily. I was ADHD after all. "Spill."

"Right." Beckendorf handed Annabeth a piece of paper and grinned like a madman. "I wrote you two a duet!"

I played a wrong note in the middle of _Light My Fire_ and groaned. I really should have seen this coming after _Good Time_ made it to the top three last week, but I still didn't like the idea. "I agree that maybe I can sing, but I'm still not a singer, Beckendorf!" I complained as Annabeth stared at the lyrics with a face I call pure horror.

"With that voice you should be, and I'm surely not the only one who thinks that", he smirked in return and winked at Annabeth, who blushed slightly. I quickly wondered why before I returned my attention back to the problem at hand and glared at our drummer. "Oh come on, try it out! Won't be that bad, I promise! Besides, your voices sound amazing together."

"I know, but we can't do this", Annabeth sounded shocked (and maybe a tad bit terrified, but don't tell her I told you that) and I snatched the sheet of paper from her hands. "I mean sure, we can do a duet, I'm perfectly okay with that, and I guess I could make Percy agree with me, but not this one! Beckendorf, seriously, that'd be – "

"_I'm lucky I'm in love with my best friend_?" I snapped at our drummer. "What the hell man? We can't sing that! The whole world knows me and Annabeth are best friends and we already have too many nasty rumors going on about our so called relationship, after this duet we wouldn't have a moment's peace!" It was true: After we had rocketed to fame people started to assume me and Annabeth were a thing, and no matter how many times we told the press we were only best friends, they still wouldn't leave us alone. I glanced at the song and read on. "_They don't know how long it takes waiting for a love like this_... You really want to kill us, don't you?"

"Don't you think you're overreacting a little?" Beckendorf seemed amused, looking between the two of us. I didn't look at him in fear of him seeing what I was thinking most of the time. "It's really not that bad, it's just a song!"

Annabeth sat up on my bed and took a serious face. "It's just a song, but this is a big deal. You wrote us a song about best friends being in love. Percy is my best friend for life, and yes, I love him to bits, but singing a song like that with him?" She shook her head. I looked at the notes of the song, it looked actually really good, but the lyrics... I didn't think I could handle it, they hit a tad too close to reality. "Those words are filled with emotion, Beckendorf. The beauty of the song would be ruined and it wouldn't sound right, because I'm _not_ actually _in love_ with my best friend – no offense, Seaweed Brain", she blushed like crazy and gave me an apologetic smile. I tried my best not to look sad. "Being in love isn't just really my thing right now."

"I know", I said, knowing for a fact she was talking about Luke and understanding her point perfectly. "And that's exactly why we're not doing this duet: because we're not in love. End of story." I just hoped they didn't see I hoped for different, that I was lying on my part, that I didn't want it to be like that ever after. Have I told you already how much it sucked being stuck on the friend-zone?

Beckendorf sighed and started towards the door. He looked like he'd known exactly how we'd react. "Think about it, okay?" he said, looking at both of us. "Give it a chance. It is, after all, a pretty good piece of shit." And with a wink he was out of the room.

Annabeth hid her still amazingly red face in my covers and I stared at the song, wondering. It seemed to me that she didn't really have a reason to blush. _So I'm sailing through the sea, to an island where we'll meet_... I mean, the lyrics weren't so bad, but the fact that I'd have to sing them with Annabeth and probably partly _to_ her... it made me feel slightly uncomfortable. I knew I would put my heart to the song, because my part was (quite ironically) true, but I also knew it would be awkward to her, because she obviously wasn't in love with me and the thought itself probably made her want to puke as much as it hurt me. And to make matters worse, the melody seemed actually very good. It sounded great – in my head, that is.

As I kept on reading the lyrics and figuring out the melody, my stupid, stubborn and creepy mind started to fill my head with pictures of me and Annabeth singing the song to each other in a concert. How we would stare at each others eyes on the stage, I would play the guitar, and as the audience starts singing along she would finally see that we were meant for each other. And then she would take my face in her hands and pull me closer and –

"Sounds good, Percy."

...wait. Don't tell me I said that out loud? Then I realized I had started unconsciously playing the duet on my guitar. Annabeth was still lying on the bed, but she was facing me and I saw that her face had almost returned to it's normal color. She gave me a small smile, and I just couldn't help but smile back. Don't ask me how I managed to play the guitar at the same time, I honestly don't know. It kind of came natural for me or something.

Annabeth crawled closer, took the paper and held it so that we could both see it. She rested her head on my knee and started humming along as I played. The more I played the song the better it sounded, and I just couldn't resist but try it, just like Beckendorf had told us to. I mean, we could always sing it, who says we have to record it and put it on a CD?

"_Do you hear me, I'm talking to you, across the water, across the deep blue ocean_", I sang, fumbling a bit but getting the hang of it pretty soon. "_Under the open sky. Oh my, baby I'm trying._"

"_Boy I hear you in my dreams_ – " Oh my God, this song was really made for Annabeth's voice. I had to try very hard to keep on playing and not stop and gape at her and her amazingly perfect voice. " – _I feel your whisper across the sea. I keep you with me in my heart, you make it easier when life gets hard._"

I just smiled as we started the verse together. The song was just getting better and better as we were singing it. "_I'm lucky I'm in love with my best friend, lucky to have been where we have been, lucky to be coming home again._" Annabeth sat up and took the paper to herself. She took the pen from her hair, letting the blond curls fall free on her back, and started scrawling something. Then she tossed it back to me. "There. Try play it again."

We continued like that, playing part of the song and then fixing something, making it just plain perfect. It took us almost an hour, but when we were ready, I was pretty sure it was one of my favorite songs of all time. It was actually almost a shame that no one else was going to hear it, to be honest.

Afterwards I put my guitar away on it's stand and we just sat there on my bed, staring at each other. "Wow", Annabeth said and smiled kind of dreamily, and I had to nod in agreement. Wow indeed. Then her face changed a bit, and only after a nanosecond I knew exactly what she was going to say before she even opened her mouth to speak, so when she did, I had the answer ready to charge. "Percy..."

"_No_."

"Why not?" she pouted, and I had to look away when I realized she was using the puppy-dog-face. I was afraid I was going to lose this argument before it even started. (I couldn't admit it to myself that I always, _always_ lost any argument against Annabeth, with the puppy-dog-face or without it.) "This is a great song, don't tell me you disagree with that."

"I'm not disagreeing, but I'm not recording it either."

"Come on, Percy." She took my hand in hers and tried to make me look at her, almost managing to do so. "Please, please, please..."

"Still no."

"If I kiss you, will you do it then?"

I wasn't sure if I had heard her correctly, but my face started to burn all the same. I swallowed and made _very_ sure not to look at her. "No."

She let out a small laugh and I cringed as I heard how she somehow managed to sound sad and offended. This was all a banter to her, right? _Right_? "What, you don't want to kiss me or something?"

_Yes, I do. More than anything at the moment._ Of course I didn't say that out loud. This conversation was getting a little too close to my ridiculous crush for my comfort. "Well I don't think that's a very fair question", I said instead, looking at the wall. My hands were sweating and my heart was pounding and my head started to spin. I could just hope that she didn't hear the slight tremble in my voice. "If I say that I want to kiss you it will make things awkward between us, but if I say that I don't it will make it sound like I think you're undesirable or not good enough or something ridiculous like that."

"Percy." Her voice was soft and quiet, and I almost wanted to see her face, to know what she was thinking. Her hand squeezed mine and I knew she was trying to make eye-contact with me. I avoided the best I could, knowing she could read me like an open book. "Percy Jackson, look at me." I didn't want to, but Annabeth took my face in her hands and forced me to look at her. Her stormy gray eyes had an unreadable glint in them as they looked into mine and saw pretty much everything, and it was killing me not knowing what she was thinking. "You want to kiss me, don't you?"

It wasn't really a question, it was a statement. And she wasn't mocking me, which I think was a miracle. Her voice was nothing more than a whisper now, so I couldn't get anything from it. Not her mood, not her thoughts, nothing. I don't even know who leaned in first, but once we kissed it felt so right, no matter how cliché it sounds. She tasted like the coffee she brewed two hours earlier, and even though you'd think it would be awkward to kiss your very best friend, the one you've known for basically your entire life, it felt natural. It was like we'd done it hundreds or thousands of times before, yet it was new and exciting. My mind was exploding, and it took me almost ten seconds to realize that I was kissing Annabeth and she was kissing me and we were actually _kissing_ and holy shit.

The kiss itself didn't last that long, actually, even though at the same time it felt like decades in a very good way. It was kind of a small kiss, but it was slow, and after the kiss we stayed close to each other, foreheads touching and noses brushing. I opened my eyes (when the hell did I even close them?) to see that hers were still closed and that her lips were slightly parted. A tiny smile was barely visible, but I saw it nevertheless – that, or I just knew it was there, I can't be sure. Annabeth's hands were back in my lap, holding mine and squeezing tight, and this time I squeezed back. Her smile grew visible.

"I take that as a yes", she whispered and opened her beautiful eyes. I saw my green orbs being reflected from them. As she talked, her lips almost touched mine, sending shivers down my spine. "But that's okay, 'cause the feeling's mutual."

She kissed me again, another sweet and slow kiss, and this time I knew from the beginning what was going on. Our lips moved perfectly together, we knew each other like we were one and the same, like we'd been together like this forever. I guess it was because we were so close in every way, so much closer than normal couples, and we had always been so comfortable around each other that it was hard to say where we stopped being two and became one. Looking back to it now, the line between us being best friends and us being a couple was almost invisible, only we could see it there – and nowadays even I can't see it.

"I hope this isn't just a trick to get me to record that stupid song", I muttered against her lips as we continued kissing and I was trying to wrap my slow mind around what was really happening. "Because I'm still not gonna do it."

Annabeth laughed a little. "I know that, and this isn't a trick. I think I'm gonna write us another duet, thought." She left out a shaky breath and I thought my heart was going to explode. "You have seriously no idea how long I've wanted to do this."

"I don't believe you."

"You'd better." We pulled apart but I still held her hands. Her cheeks were a bit flushed and in my opinion she was more beautiful than ever. "I know I said that being in love isn't really my thing at the moment, but I can't really help how I feel. And I didn't say anything about crushing on my best friend, right?"

"We're living the world's biggest cliché, aren't we?" I laughed and she chuckled along. I had always loved the sound of her laugh, but now it was even more beautiful. "Best friends for life, they fall for each other, and then they either end up hating each other or live happily ever after together."

She smiled at me and pecked my lips. I was pretty sure I was never going to get tired of the feeling of her lips against mine, and it was a nice thought. "For us, I'm hoping for the latter."

Gosh, we were sappy.

We just sat there holding hands and looking at each other, both of us smiling, our lips meeting every now and then for a small and sweet kiss. I didn't know how much time passed, I didn't care. All I cared about was that apparently Annabeth felt somewhat the same for me as I did for her, and that we were together or at least I thought we'd be soon enough – I wasn't really sure what we were at the moment. But it was okay, because even if we didn't end up as a couple (in which case I knew I was going to be a totally heartbroken teenage-girl), I knew I'd have Annabeth by my side no matter what as my best friend.

Just when I thought nothing could kill my mood, I heard Thalia's voice from outside my room. "Percy, get your lazy ass downstairs, your dad's waiting for you in the living room, said it's something really important or whatever. And Annabeth, if you're still in there like I think you might be, meet me in your room in exactly three minutes, not any later. I need to check in your wardrobe for something to wear in that stupid interview tonight because apparently I don't have any clean clothes left."

I groaned a bit as I remembered my father being in town. Annabeth held my hands tighter for a second, then let go and stood up, fixing her clothes (I didn't see anything being wrong with them, but you never knew with girls). "We'll talk about this later", she promised me with a slight smile, and all I could do was nod. I, too, stood up and wrapped my arms around her waist, hugging her tight. "I think we should keep this down for now", she then whispered so that Thalia (who I guessed was waiting for Annabeth in the hallway) couldn't hear. "Until we figure out what's going on ourselves at least."

"I agree", I muttered to her hair, then put two fingers under her chin and lifted her head up so that I could kiss her slowly once more before we had to be going. It was easy to see that Annabeth didn't want to leave my room any more than I did, but still it was her who pulled away first. I pouted and she poked me between the ribs.

"To be continued, Seaweed Brain", she winked and walked to the door, opened it and walked to Thalia, who was waiting by the stairs.

"We're not finished with this!" I threatened her with a grin as I followed the girls downstairs, but that was pretty much as far as I was ready to stretch the limits of 'keeping it down'.

"Do I even want to know?" Thalia asked and Annabeth shook her head. Then my cousin took a better look at my best friend and furrowed her brows. "Wait, what's wrong with your lips? They're not usually that red."

I felt my face getting red and was so glad Thalia had her back at me. Annabeth sounded embarrassed and rushed to her room muttering something about desperately needing more lip balm and Thalia followed her suit, leaving me alone to the stairs. I tried to make my blush go away before going down the last steps and walking to the living room, where I saw my dad sitting in my favorite spot on the couch in his black and perfectly neat Armani suit. It wasn't that he looked really out of place there, I just wasn't used to seeing him in L.A.

"I'm sorry I didn't call first", Dad said as I sat down in an arm chair across from him. "But I just thought I'd tell this now and not tomorrow, for it is your birthday and I don't want to ruin it with sad news, and I'm leaving for New York tomorrow late at night. This isn't really something to discuss over a birthday cake or in a phone call."

"Sad news?" I was confused. "What sad news? Dad, what's going on? Is everything okay?"

"I believe it is, and for those it isn't I like to think it's going to be." He rubbed his face and looked down, and I was shocked to notice he was actually sad, and it made him look at least ten years older than he was. "I believe I have found the reason Nico acted the way you described to me the other day."

At that moment I decided it was sometimes actually a good thing Nico used so much time in his room or walking around the neighborhood alone. That meant there wasn't a very big chance of him walking in on us talking about his depression behind his back. No matter how many times I had told myself I was doing this for his best to find a way to try to understand, I still felt like I was doing something very wrong.

Dad took a paper from the inside pocket of his jacket and placed it on the glass table between us. I took it without saying a word. It was a picture of a girl, who was probably around my age but really small. Her skin was beautiful brown color and her chocolate brown curly hair was tied in a pony tail. She was riding a horse, and her smile was wide and radiant. She looked happy – if you didn't look at her eyes. They were almost dead, like they didn't match her at all. I knew that look, it was the same one I saw on Nico almost every day. I wondered what exactly this had to do with Nico and his depression.

"Who is this?" I asked. Somehow I felt the need to whisper, as if being gentle would make the girl in the picture feel better.

Dad didn't whisper, but his voice was soft and quiet. "That is Hazel Levesque, daughter of Marie Levesque and Hades di Angelo. Found dead in her bed only six months after her father died in the car accident." I looked up at Dad, but he looked at his hands. It was a long time since I had last seen him like this. "She took her own life."

I stayed silent, just looking between Dad and the picture and waiting for him to continue. I was too shocked to talk. I mean, Uncle Hades had a child outside marriage? I could have expected that from Uncle Zeus, and even from my own father, but never from Uncle Hades. He always seemed like the most loyal one of the three. I guess nothing is ever as it seems.

"It seems that her suicide had originally nothing to do with my brother's passing. It was just the final straw." Dad took a deep breath before he started all over again with the story, and I listened carefully, dying to learn more about why my cousin was so sad and scared.

"Hazel was fifteen when she met Frank Zhang. Frank was a very nice, very caring seventeen-year-old, and as I've heard, he was also very depressed after his mother had passed away a few years before. But Hazel seemed to make him better. They dated for a couple of months before her mother, Marie, found out and told her to cut it out, that she needed to focus on school and that she was too young to date anyone. Marie was very strict about it, and finally when Hazel wouldn't do as asked, she called Frank herself and told him he would not be seeing Hazel again. Marie and Hazel moved from Jacksonville to New York."

"After six months of not seeing each other, not being able to contact each other, Hazel got a phone call from Frank's grandmother. Frank had gone worse by the day after Hazel had left, sadder and darker, until they had finally found him dead in his bedroom. There was a letter to Hazel in his hand, and that's why his grandmother had called her."

"No one could tell me what the letter said, but I can imagine." And so could I. This was horrible. I wanted to tell Dad to shut up, tell him I'd heard enough, but I couldn't speak or move or even blink. I knew where this was going, I had heard the song Nico wrote. _But nobody knew how much she blamed herself... we found her with her face down in the pillow, clinging to his picture for dear life._ Those lyrics had haunted me after I first heard them, and I could only imagine what this all did to Nico's sleep.

And all I could do was look at Hazel Levesque's hollow eyes and know what was going to happen before Dad even told me.

"Nico got in contact with Hazel two years after Frank had died, and it seemed that they became very close very fast. Hazel replaced Bianca, who had become distant to Nico ever since she started high school – you know this. Why no one told us about Hazel, we will never know. But even with a little brother in her life, Hazel was never okay with what had happened to Frank, and apparently she blamed herself for it all. And that is why six months and seven days after Hades and Maria had died, Nico walked into Hazel's room to find she had taken her own life."

I knew now why Nico had acted the way he had. It all made sense, and at the same time it didn't. Why hadn't I known about Hazel? Nico had lived with me and my mom and Paul when this all happened. Why hadn't he told me? Had he told Mom? Had he told anyone? I didn't even know if Nico had ever seen anyone professional with these problems. Was he keeping it all inside, letting it build up, only pouring his heart to music?

As Dad left and I was alone with my thoughts in the living room going through it all again, one question raised above all the others: was music enough to keep Nico going, to keep him alive and breathing?

I looked at Nico as he slowly breathed in and out, picking on his fingernails and looking at anything but me. It had taken me a lot to calm him down after talking to him about Hazel and explaining that yes I knew, and no, I had told no one except Annabeth, who Nico didn't really seem to mind knowing. But he was still shaking, he had red circles around his eyes and his lower lip was trembling slightly. I really didn't know what I could do, so I just sat there by his bedroom door for a long while, waiting for him to calm down.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't talk about any of this", he finally mumbled, and I had to repeat the words a couple of times in my head before I understood what he said. "I mean, I guess you're gonna tell Annabeth everything anyway, so no point telling you not to, but don't say anything to the others. I'll talk to them later, I guess. When... when I'm ready."

"Of course." I watched him put the picture of Hazel away, rub his face and sigh, gathering himself again. "Are you going to be okay?"

He shrugged and looked at me quickly before lowering his gaze to the floor again. "I'll try. I just don't know if I know how to be okay anymore."

I felt so bad for him it was almost like a physical illness. He didn't deserve this, no one deserved anything like this, yet there he was, fifteen years old and not sure if he'd ever feel even close to normal anymore. I slowly got up and turned to the door, deciding to give him his space. Just before I closed the door behind me I stopped and said, "I'll be always there if you need to talk. Remember that." When I walked up the stairs from the basement I heard his loud music blasting through the speakers.

Annabeth was sitting on my bed when I walked in. Her eyes were glued to the book she was currently reading, most of her hair falling on her face, a tiny little smile playing on her lips. She was hugging my pillow and I realized she was also wearing my sweatpants. I didn't mind.

She looked up when I closed the door, and the smile on her lips grew a bit wider. Gosh, she was so beautiful. I had to admit, during everything I had found out about Nico today I had almost forgotten what had happened between me and Annabeth, but only almost. I mean, how _could_ I forget something like that? And when I sat down in front of her and watched as she put down the book I just wanted to kiss her so bad, but I didn't have the courage anymore. What _were_ we?

"How's Nico?" she asked, looking a little concerned, and I sighed and rubbed my face.

"Surviving", I muttered. "I guess she didn't quite like the fact that we know about Hazel now. I can't blame him, though."

We were quiet for a long while, me looking at my hands and Annabeth looking at me. I could feel her eyes on my face, but didn't look up. I wasn't even thinking about Nico and Hazel anymore; I was very aware of the fact that I had kissed my best friend that morning, that we had been _making out_ that same day, and we still needed to talk about it. And she was sitting so close to me our feet were almost touching, and it was killing me. Would it be okay if I just reached out and kissed her? Would she freak out and leave?

Before I could even decide anything, Annabeth crawled a little closer and touched my cheek with a soft touch, making me look up at her face. She smiled slightly, and I returned the smile, and the tension seemed to leave the room altogether. I felt like I could breathe a little better.

"Hey", she whispered, and her thumb traced down my cheek to my jaw and back up. Instead of making me tense again, it felt nice and comforting, the way it had always felt. It didn't make me want to kiss her any less, but it helped me to sort out my thoughts for now. I mirrored her actions, placing my own hand on her cheek and caressing it.

"Hi." Our faces were almost touching, I could smell her shampoo – she had just washed her hair, it was still a little damp. Tiny parts of her hair tickled the back of my hand, but I didn't care. All I could see were her eyes and the way they were looking at me, like answering a silent question I didn't know I was asking yet.

Annabeth was the one who finally broke the eye-contact, but it didn't make me feel uncomfortable. We sat on my bed, our backs against the wall and our legs tangled together, and I had my arm around her shoulders. She was playing with the fingers of my free hand, drawing circles to my palm and stroking my wrist every now and then. I was very content right there and then, I could have stayed there forever with her.

"How long?" she asked quietly, and I knew exactly what she meant. How long had I loved her exactly?

I hid my face to her hair and closed my eyes, smelling her shampoo as I thought. I wanted to give her an answer that wouldn't sound creepy but still would be the truth. "For a while", I said softly, twirling her hair around my finger and thinking about the times it had painfully hit me I was in love with my best friend. "A couple of years."

It wasn't a lie – it had been a little over two years since I had first realized I actually _loved_ her. I had had a crush on her since I was twelve, but it wasn't until she started dating Luke and I saw the two of them together that I realized how far gone I was.

Annabeth snuggled closer to me and I felt her breath on my neck, sending shivers down my spine and making me hold her tighter. "Four months."

I was surprised. She had liked me for four months and only let me know today? I was a little taken aback by it. Surely she had seen that I was head over heels for her, no matter how well I tried to hide it. She knew me better than anyone! But before I said anything, she answered the question without asking.

"It was right after our last recording session. Remember that day? You and I went walking and bought some cupcakes from Starbucks before coming back home. And then we sat by the pool and after eating the cupcakes – "

"You pushed me into the pool", I chuckled and she laughed too. "Yes, I remember that. It's a miracle my phone didn't break when it fell with me."

"Yeah, sorry about that." She pulled away a bit to look at me, and our eyes locked again. "I just watched you as you laughed and tried to pull with me, and it kind of hit me. And I didn't know if you even liked me the way I liked you, so I didn't do or say anything, and now I just feel stupid because it's kind of obvious now that you liked me back then." I felt my cheeks burning and her eyes laughed at me. "Hestia actually asked me a few weeks ago if we were together already. When I said no she looked kind of devastated."

I laughed nervously. Of course I knew about many people wanting us to be together, and there were so many rumors around the Internet that we actually were dating in secret, but it had always felt uncomfortable to me. Now, though, after kissing Annabeth several times and sitting there with her, it seemed like a possible and very likely future for us, and it made me want to jump up and down and around the house like a maniac. I could barely contain my excitement, and I felt my ADHD trying to make me crazy, but I just stayed there, by her side, and leaned in to rest my forehead against hers.

"And are we together _now_?" I asked softly, my voice just barely above a whisper, and I could see her smiling.

"You're such a Seaweed Brain", she whispered before crashing her lips on mine, and I was in heaven again. After the few hours that had gone without me even really seeing Annabeth that much, much less being alone with her, it felt like our moment before had been just a dream, a fairytale, but feeling her soft lips moving against my mouth in a slow dance told me that yes, this was my reality, as crazy as it seemed, and even though there were bad and depressing things happening around the world, I was having one of the happiest moments of my life so far.

Kissing Annabeth was very quickly becoming one of the best spare time activities I could imagine. And the best part was that it was getting better and better every second, and _we_ were getting better at it, and _in the name of sanity_ my heart felt like it was bursting out of my chest. Annabeth's palm was against my neck and my arm was around her waist, and our other hands were holding each other tight, out fingers tangled. Her lips were soft but demanding, and I had no problem with complying everything she ever required. I'd known for years that I'd do anything for her, and that hadn't changed for one bit. We kept kissing until it was getting hard to breathe, and even when we pulled apart our faces stayed close and I could feel her shaky breath on my neck.

"I guess that's a yes, then", I grinned and she laughed.

I saw her quickly glancing at the clock I had on my wall before she kissed me again, deeply and leaving me breathless all over again. I was starting to forget my own name and my heart was beating _Annabeth Annabeth Annabeth_. I wondered why on earth had it taken us so long to actually get together, but I was happy we had figured it out in the end.

Annabeth was the one in charge of the situation, and I was actually really disappointed when she finally pulled out to take a deep breath and smile to me.

"Happy birthday, Seaweed Brain", she whispered before continuing out make out session, and I was already sure it was the best birthday present I would receive that day, even though the day had only just changed.

* * *

_**Author's Note:**_

_So, I know that I made Hazel and Frank a little OoC, but it just worked that way. I hope it doesn't make you hate the story, because I have so much good stuff coming for you guys! Stay fabulous, and don't forget to follow, favorite and review!  
_


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